After
by SarahFromHell
Summary: Alternate ending, multiple POVs.  Derivative, but what the hell.  Please review!
1. Annette: I Could've Kept It Quiet

Annette:

I could've kept it quiet, the journal. It wasn't how I was raised, to take such pleasure in hurting others. I probably would've kept it quiet, if...ififif...

If you hadn't said, when you tried to leave me, that you loved someone else. And later of course you said you hadn't meant a word of it, it was just words you made up off the top of your head to hurt me enough to make me believe it was truly final. And I believed you when you said that—it sounded like something you, at least the "old you", would do.

If you hadn't written there, right under her name: "My Love." You had an explanation for that too when I asked. You'd thought you loved her _back then_, you said, because she was evil, and evil was all that you admired _back then. _That was before I came along and taught you how beautiful it was to be good. You didn't love her now, of course, in fact she completely disgusted you.

If it wasn't for your words in the hospital.

"Kathryn," you said. Slipping in and out of coma, your eyes unfocused.

"No Sebastian, it's Annette. Remember? Your girlfriend?"

"Kathryn." Your eyes locked on me but it seemed you still didn't really see me. "Tell Kathryn..." You had a split second of what looked like complete lucidity. Then you rolled your head to the side and stared at the wall. In less than a minute you were out of it again.

This went on several times. I don't remember how many. And then finally:

"I'm dying you bitch bring me Kathryn."

I dialed the Valmont mansion. You didn't see me do it, you were already gone again. Spoke to the maid, told her of the situation. It seemed to take much longer than it should have for your family to come. In the meantime, I wept right in front of you. I figured that it didn't matter, because you didn't see me anyway. Had you ever?

I didn't think you were really dying though. If I'd known I would've kissed you goodbye. Despite everything.


	2. Kathryn: The Crowd Gathers Round

Kathryn:

The crowd gathers round me, the way they always do, but this time it's for an execution. I'm about to be crucified for their sins. Yes, theirs—Sebastian wrote about _everybody_ in that journal not just me. I could laugh. Instead I find myself crying for no good reason. A single tear falls, but my face doesn't scrunch up, remains smooth and perfect, I've got that much control at least. Some guys in my past have found this combination attractive, some guys in the audience here might still find it attractive if they can manage to ignore what's in the journal. It doesn't matter. Mother comes up. She's boiling with rage inside, but her face is a mask. She's shocked at the revelation, and concerned about her lovely daughter. I get in the car with her. At home, she closes the door and stands in front of me and slaps my face again and again. "How _dare_ you... My _reputation..._" I tune it out. Coke is all I'm thinking about, I can taste it on my tongue already, that lovely numbing sensation. Then one sharp word cuts through the mess: "Rehab."

"You can't be serious Mother. You and I both know that I'm not addicted. Even my liar of a stepbrother never made that claim. I'm a social user, as you are when the occasion demands it."

She slaps me even harder. "You _will _go to rehab. I will hear no arguments about it. I expect you to pack your things as you will be leaving tomorrow." She leaves, finally. I head to my room. The crucifix was taken but I still have a plentiful secret stash behind the top drawer. I look—it's not there. The bitch must have had my room searched while I was still up at Manchester. My fingers itch as I pace the room. Need coke. Please. I'd call up one of my college boy sex toys who doesn't give a damn what happens at Manchester, but I already know Mother has instructed the servants to not let anyone in or out. If I can just get through this night... I log on to the internet, porn and my fingers are the only escapes left. Like someone in trance, I find my way to the sex tape Sebastian made with what's-her-face, the shrink's daughter. I fuck myself frantically to their moans, and as I come, so do the tears, those stupid tears again, but then again no one is watching right now so who cares? And in a strange way, the tape is comforting. I'm getting off to the face body and cock of a dead man, as he's engaged in ruining someone's life. It's sick and wrong and depraved. It's _me—_the part of me the Manchester student body never saw before today and still won't ever understand, the part of me my mother would like to kill, hollow out of me until only the mask is left. You won't succeed. You can't change me. Rehab or no rehab, I will never be anything but myself.

I lie down on my bed and drift into sleep. "Pack your things," really. As if we didn't have maids for that.

The rehab facility's a Westchester-based outfit known for its complete discretion. They're done up in the most petty-bourgeois manner possible, on purpose; decent meals and decor are "enabling" according to their philosophy. The lack of beautiful surroundings drives me crazy almost as much as the coke withdrawal. I am agonizingly bored most of the time, but at least there is sex. I fuck a teen movie idol, perfectly chiseled body and bored superior expression fixed permanently onto his face. He's in there for heroin. Later I'll read a headline in _People_ about his heroic battle with cancer—discretion, like I said. When he leaves, I switch to a Disney machine pop starlet. She's in for coke alcohol and Ecstasy, but her real problem is that she's in love with her best friend and can't tell anybody. Her gayness might fuck up that wholesome Disney image. I consider telling her: how about I pretend to be what's-her-face, and you pretend to be Seb? But it wouldn't work, she's far too innocent to pull it off. I get bored with her quickly and turn to the son of a discount-store magnate from the Midwest, meth addict, not that cute really, I don't usually go for the farm boy look, but what I like about him is, he's into violence. He likes choking me and twisting my nipples until they're bruised purple, banging my head against the floor and calling me his whore and his slave. He's my slave, of course, like all the others, as he finds out quickly enough when I stop having sex with him.

"You don't deny me."

"Watch me."

"You act high and mighty now, but when I get you alone..."

"You'll do nothing. Unless you want a very very public trial."

"Seriously, please, why are you doing this? I love you, Kathryn. You're the only one who really understands me." Well yes, morons are easy to understand. Your point?

My first day here, the director of the facility gave us all a pep talk. She said recovery was possible, but you had to really want to change. I didn't. But it wasn't hard to convince her that I did. Put on the sweet contrite look, regurgitate the Twelve Steps literature. The only thing that's getting me through this hell is the thought of that white powder, but why should you know about that? "Yes, I'm a little bit scared, but in my heart I really do think I'm ready. I can't wait to begin my new clean and sober life."

For my "new life", I'm shipped directly from rehab to a boarding school in Switzerland. For once Mother and I are in complete agreement. In fact, I'm actually grateful to her for sparing me a return visit to Manchester. Here, luxury at last. Coke, too, as much as I can snort. Philippe, who by some strange coincidence is even gayer than Blaine was, sees to that. The abundance of diplomat's offspring makes for some interesting sexual pickings. And I have my own room again, at least after poor little Violette is caught with a backpack full of hard drugs. Tsk, tsk. You really should know better Violette. Settled in, I begin my tedious climb up the school's social ladder. The "it" boyfriend over here is an overbearingly arrogant French boy named Marcel, whose intellectual-philosophical pretensions I find downright refreshing compared to the know-nothing jock attitudes of Court and his ilk. I seduce him. It's easy and boring, like everything else.

The scenery is different: skyscrapers have been replaced by mountains. Otherwise, everything is as it was.

I enter my room, alone or with Marcel or another bedmate, and the silence there makes me want to scream. I do a line instead. Or else I attack the boy next to me, kiss and bite him all over because conversation is impossible with these people. The idiot thinks my desire is for him. It will be, temporarily, if he knows how to lick my pussy right. Getting the school's resident Ms. Perfect replaced in mere weeks was a work of sheer artistry, but no one here has the vision to appreciate it—not even Marcel, who's really quite conventionally moral at bottom despite all his Nietzschean superman speeches.

And there's still the spectre of Annette. The bitch must pay, pure and simple. Even if I didn't despise her, she'd still have to be destroyed for security reasons.

And after that? College, meaning Harvard. Early decision season is coming up, I've been putting off doing the application even though I know my grades and community service record are perfect. The essay isn't a problem, either, I've got enough material, and if I decide I've had enough lying for one lifetime I can pay or blackmail someone else to do it. It's just that, more and more these days, I don't care. Oh, I'll apply, and get in. What's the alternative? I could just say _fuck it_, get deeper and deeper into the coke addiction, end up an overdose or a crack whore on the street.

I don't think I'd enjoy it very much.

But Mother would just _die_.


	3. Sebastian: I Should

Sebastian:

_He is lying on his back. Darkness surrounds him, holding him down like a straitjacket. There's a sharp pain in his head, his breathing is difficult and he knows he is going to die soon. And he isn't afraid of the darkness or the pain or his impending death, but he doesn't want to die without _her_, the one who's always been there. She is the demon who leans casually over his shoulder and goads him into unspeakable acts, and the secretly vulnerable sister whose hand he squeezed under the table at the birthday dinner, while her mother ranted about her weight. And he is in an incoherent state and has no names for what he feels, but he needs to hear her mocking laugh above him, to feel her nails digging into his flesh. Hovering near him is a blur of yellow and white like some impersonal angel, a blank emissary from heaven's bureaucracy, her voice an annoying buzzing sound. He is alone. No matter how many strangers are around him, he is alone. He slips further into despair, and then into coma._

I wake up to find my "family", if you can call it that, arrayed by my bedside. At the head of the bed is Annette, my angel. Her eyes are red and puffy, like she's been crying for hours. For me, no doubt she's been worried sick about me. It's one of the things I love most about her, such innocent honesty and openness of feeling.

At the side of the bed stand Edward and Tiffany—just the thought of calling them my parents makes me want to vomit—Tiffany obviously pissed off at having to leave the mayor's charity luncheon early, Edward not-so-subtly eyeing the young nurse.

And at the foot of the bed is...Kathryn. Perfectly composed; as always. I try to read her expression. Can't.

Annette notices right away when I open my eyes. Edward and Tiffany don't notice a thing. I think Kathryn sees it, she sees everything, but she gives no sign. "Sebastian..." Annette says softly. Her face cracks into a smile but it's a shy, hesitant one. She isn't jumping up and down with glee. She looks broken inside, dead inside, dead used broken like all the other girls I've fucked and thrown away.

"Your family's all here."

Ah yes, my wonderful loving family. "I'm awake, you idiots," I say, meaning for it to come out smooth and caustic but my voice is not my friend here, it sounds pathetically weak and hoarse from disuse. Edward turns around mutters "Glad you're still with us son," goes back to staring at the nurses. What Tiffany does is worse: she makes a big fuss, coos over my recovery with insincere delight. And Kathryn joins in. The concerned sister act.

Something is wrong here, but I'm having trouble figuring out what. The pain makes it hard to concentrate.

The memories come back, but slowly. Vague confused dreams of being trapped and needing something, probably air, given the pain I feel right now whenever I try to breathe. Before that, the accident. Ronald angry about something, but he's nothing more than a pawn—Kathryn sent him. Then Annette coming by and me jumping in front of the car to save her, that's right I nearly died just to save you Annette so why aren't you happy you ungrateful bitch?

"I'm just glad that _you're_ okay," I tell Annette. "I was so worried when you came in front of the car like that...you're the light of my life and I wouldn't want to live a second without you." I'm speaking to her but my focus is on Kathryn, who I glance at out of the corner of my eye. It's exactly the kind of speech most likely to make her throw up. But she doesn't blanch in horror or make any sarcastic comments, just keeps that fake concerned look on her face, even shows a little half smile, not a knowing smile or a vicious one or any of her real ones but an adoring I'm-so-happy-for-you look, the kind of sweet platonic smile normal sisters give their real brothers.

I should tell her to leave. The bitch almost got me killed, after all.

Should.

Should.

My angel's face lights up when she hears my words, and I'm glad I could do this much at least because I don't ever want her to suffer. She's beautiful, and mine. She caresses my hair—I don't feel anything. Kathryn's still wearing the same look. Did I say Annette looked dead inside? I didn't mean it. Annette is very much alive, just sad. Kathryn's the one who's dead inside, or maybe she was never alive to begin with, and if I ever thought otherwise that was just wishful thinking. Perfect petite doll girl with expensive clothes and all the right friends, insides as hollow as that stupid cross she wears around her neck. A carbon copy of her mother.

And then I remember—the reason why Kathryn sent Ronald after me. Her ice-blue room. My ice-cold champagne. The lust in her eyes as I pushed her down, all set to make her my whore and then go back to the real girlfriend leaving her alone crying and hurting in all 3 holes, realizing almost too late that the victory even then would be hers, her victory for turning me into a rapist a mindless monster, reminding her of the arrangement and hating her for being able to hear my voice break as I did it, "war it is" and the sound of glass breaking against the wall as I closed the door behind me.

The perfect socialite couple leaves. Their perfect socialite daughter leaves with them. "Get well soon," she says. Annette glares daggers at her but doesn't say anything. I tell her to go home and get some rest, I'll still be here when she comes back.

So this is what war feels like. That little sweet smile. I'd rather you just took the IV out, sister. That would hurt less.

I ring up Edward's business line and tell him I need to get away for a while, woman trouble, you understand. I ask him if he can arrange the little matter of faking my death. He agrees with pathetic boyish eagerness, delighted to have something he can keep secret from Tiffany now that she's got his balls locked up in an iron-clad prenup. London's my first choice, but there's a slim chance someone I know might see me there and blab, so we decide on Thailand. I'm asleep by the time the plane flies over Kansas, my darling Annette's old home...

...flyover country.

* * *

><p>AN: Not sure if I got Sebastian's "voice" right in this one. Would welcome any criticism/commentary. More to come...


	4. Kathryn: The Floodgates

Kathryn:

_He's back._

I get the news from Blaine, my one-time dealer and still-reliable second set of eyes at Manchester. Blaine whose love for me is the purest there is, the love of a gay man for his female diva idol. He tells me I'd better sit down for this. "Remember your dear beloved stepbrother?"

"I don't remember having a _dear beloved_ anything. I suppose you've called with news about Sebastian. What is it?"

"You'll never guess."

I roll my eyes—Blaine has a penchant to over-dramatize everything. "I don't suppose a new will's surfaced that leaves me the car?"

"Better than that. He's back."

"Back, as in..."

"As in empty coffin, faked medical records, the whole works. You got played, Princess."

"Excuse me for a minute, I have a call on another line." I put the phone on mute because I've only got a few seconds before it happens. I lean against the wall and put my hand over my mouth, because the floodgates are opening and no one but me must hear this, no one but me can ever know. The memories rush in:

Seb standing in the doorway as I get ready for bed, "Hello, Sis," the sibling endearment hitting me with the force of an obscenity, the incest angle just another ingredient in the stew of perversion that was our lives.

The maniacally gleeful look on his face as he moves in on me, stroking my breasts with those oh so practiced hands. Sometimes I'd wrap my legs around his waist all of a sudden, just to give him a thrill. His quick gasp when I did that, priceless.

Sebastian, my ever-present torment. He fucked other women but I owned him, body and soul. Couldn't ever admit how much I got off on it, because then he'd own me. Here, in fucking nowhere Switzerland, just knowing he's alive is almost too much for me to bear. "Come home baby," I whisper into my hand. "Come home and abuse your little whore of a sister."

Okay, enough. Time to get the rest of the story from Blaine. I get my lipstick from my bag, unscrew the bottom compartment and take out a good spoonful—just in case.

"Sorry about that. Where were we?"

"Sebastian. Your not-dead brother."

"Right. So what _has_ the little bastard been up to?"

"Well, the first thing he did yesterday morning was to make a huge speech in front of the entire school about how sorry he was. Never meant to hurt you all, prank got out of hand, yadda yadda yadda. Then the headmaster spoke for an hour about how this was a lesson to us all. Almost enough to make yours truly wish he was back in class failing that biology test. I'm glad you weren't there, Princess, it was truly sickening, and you've got enough of a bulimia problem. Rumor is his girlfriend put him up to it. Can you say whipped?"

I hadn't even thought about the blonde. "How is she handling it?"

"Watches him like a hawk in the hallways. Clearly afraid he'll cheat."

"Any moves in my direction?"

"From her or from him?"

Blaine knows me too well. "From either."

"Nope."

"Have you spoken to either of them one-on-one?"

"As much as I'd love to get your stepbrother alone in a dark corner, no. As for Miss Pure as the Driven Snow, I'm surprised at you. I think she'd rather get expelled than get within ten feet of a gay old sinner like me."

"All right. Keep me posted."

Annette probably didn't know where I was. But Sebastian lives in my house, could wheedle the information out of Mother, she might even tell him herself in that gloating way of hers...he has access to my room now. A nightmare vision comes into my head of him and Annette, the two of them _making love_ in my bed, sweet endearments and slow careful caresses. I stare down at the spoon in my hand, then will myself to put it away. I am not an addict. I still have control.


	5. Sebastian: Tragic Heroine

Sebastian:

I don't remember the first name of the girl in bed with me. I remember that her last name is Something-porn, Chattaporn or Kattaporn, something like that, and that unlike some of the other bar girls, she knows enough English to get the joke. She has small cute tits, thick black hair down to her waist, and golden tan skin of the type Upper East Side girls spend hundreds at tanning beds to achieve. She wants to marry me, like all the other girls I've fucked here. I'm the jackpot by their standards: a rich American meal ticket who's also young, good-looking, and good in bed. This one actually took me home to meet her mother for dinner. We chatted over home-cooked Thai food that wasn't as good as the stuff in the restaurants, the mother didn't speak a word of English but the daughter translated: all compliments and questions about America, of course. I played with her pussy under the table, and the mother saw but never said a word about it. She must really want her daughter set up. In my mind, I played with the idea of a threesome. The mother was pretty hot herself, looked like Mei-Le from back home...Kathryn acted like that woman was her personal property, threatened to cut my balls off if I ever came near her, and I pretty much did give up on chasing her pussy in favor of chasing Kathryn's so the thought of ravaging her look-alike has, shall we say, a certain appeal. If Kathryn was there at that moment she'd ask sarcastically if I was aware that Thailand and Vietnam are two different countries? That's my girl, never fail to get an insult in. My mind drifted, so I didn't put my seduction plan for the mother into action that night. It doesn't matter; I already know she'll be ridiculously easy to get into bed.

A morning thunderstorm batters the bright green jungle foliage outside my hotel room's window, which suits me fine, as I've always preferred rain to sunshine. The girl shifts in her sleep. I wonder if she'd consider this scene romantic. I'd like to think she wouldn't, that she's someone with more brains than that, merely a gold-digger rather than a sentimental moron. Truth is, I'm bored with her, bored with this whole fucking country. What I really want is for Edward to call me and say, "You're missing too much schoolwork, time to come home already." That's weakness. No, Kathryn would say that's weakness. Annette would say it's normal. Then again, this is the girl who wrote in _Seventeen_ that she fantasized about her father looking at her with pride as he walked her down the aisle knowing she was still a virgin, a sentiment I still find unutterably creepy.

In my mind I picture her broken up still, red-eyed and haunted, completely unable to get over my death. My more cynical side tells me she's probably turned into a complete slut. In the end I call Blaine to get the truth, and find that:

1) Annette, showing an initiative my old self would've applauded, used the journal I gave her to utterly wreck Kathryn's reputation. She's since become a top player in the school's social circle—not quite at the same level that Kathryn was, but close. She's refused to date anyone, though, claiming she's too heartbroken to get close to any guy for a while. Blaine calls it "playing the tragic heroine." Back in the old days, I would've automatically thought the same thing. Now I wonder.

2) Kathryn, after an obligatory stay in rehab, got sent to a boarding school in Switzerland and apparently is doing quite well there. She has a new collection of suck-up friends, and is dating another insufferable asshole. I ask Blaine if she's still doing coke. "What do you think?" he says, and snorts.

I know I'll have to go back. This place is full of loser guys who can't get a woman unless they pay, but think they're the king of everything over here just because they're surrounded by whores. I can get women for free, of course, but I'm at risk of becoming like them in other ways: laziness, lack of intellectual interest, complacent sense of entitlement. And Annette needs me. I can't imagine being happy anywhere at this moment, but at least I can give happiness to her. She can help me become the man I want to be, which I can only conceive of right now as being the polar opposite to the "falangs" I see all around me at the bars and beaches. Before I leave, thinking of Annette, I try to do a nice thing for the last of my Thai girls. I give her twice the normal sex fee and tell her:

"I'm not going to marry you. I was never going to marry you. None of the other foreign guys who come here looking for Asian ass are going to marry you either, although they might promise you that to lead you on until they find somebody younger and lower priced. If you want marriage you're better off going for a Thai guy, although from what I've heard they're a bunch of jerks too, so actually you're better off not going for marriage at all. Nobody here is going to rescue you, they'll all just do like I did and feed you line after line of BS."

"BS?"

"Bullshit. It means lies."

"Ah."

"If you want to support your mother long term, save up whatever money you make at the bars and use it on a college education. Unless you want to be fucking old assholes until you age out of the business, which would be at, let's say, thirty-five if you're lucky."

"You done?"

"Yeah."

"OK. I think you good person. I think you say this because you good person, you want me do OK. But words no good. You want help me, give me money for college. No give me words. Words is, how you say, bullshit. You want help me and mother, give money for me and mother. OK?"

The entire time she's delivering this angry speech, she keeps her face fixed in that famous Thai smile.

I give her my own famous grin and another large tip. She'll do fine.

Back home, the cold hits me like a knockout punch. An unseasonably cool summer has turned into a fall that feels like winter minus the snow. My ribs hurt. I stagger home and shut my townhouse door with relief against the wind. Then I go upstairs, where Annette is waiting. She sits on my bed but refuses to let me touch her.

"How could you do this? We were all so worried about you."

"Who's 'we'? I know you were worried, but the rest of them..."

"That's not fair. Practically the entire school turned up at your funeral. You really are loved, Sebastian, and you don't even appreciate it, it's like you just spit in the faces of the people who care about you."

"I know I've wronged you, and believe me, I'll do whatever it takes to make it up to you. You'll see that I'm _very_ good at apologizing." I reach around to play with her tits, but she just pushes me off. "Annette, look at me. Do you believe that I love you?" She nods. "Well, okay then."

"After this, I don't even know if I want to be with you anymore."

"You don't mean that."

"You're right, I don't." Her voice is bitter, and she seems to curl up even farther into herself. "Do you realize how _fucked _I am because of you? I'd probably want to be with you even you were, I don't know, a serial killer or something. You really are the best, Sebastian, congratulations."

She used to make funny faces, tickle me out of nowhere, whatever it took to make me laugh. She used to pity me for being so serious. Now it's my turn to be the lighthearted one, to snap her out of her self-pity. "No, _you're_ the best," I tell her. "I heard about that production you did at the funeral. I know you're not the kind of person to do those things just for fun, but when you want to be bad, you're brilliant at it. Enough to impress even a jaded old soul like me."

She blushes, just like I wanted her to. "I just hope Kathryn's learned something from the experience. Rumor is she went to rehab, so maybe they were able to help her. Maybe now she's come to understand that you can't just treat people like they're disposable and get away with it." She sighs. "Well, except for you. You always get away with it."

"I didn't get away. I came back. For you, angel."

I lift her chin up to mine, and give her a deep kiss. This time, she doesn't resist at all. I'm about to start turning the kiss into something more when a thought occurs to me.

"You know, Kathryn isn't going to just let this be. Sooner or later, she'll want to come back and take her revenge." I find myself getting hard at the thought. Picturing Annette curled up in fetal position and soaked in tears because of Kathryn's machinations, Kathryn finishing her off with a few choice quips then stepping over to me to seal the deal, because sex for her is never sweeter than when it's over a fallen enemy's corpse. I'm disgusted with myself. Luckily Annette doesn't see anything, the only thing she notices is my protective gaze and the tender way I stroke her hair.

"Don't worry," she says. "I'm not afraid of her."

She doesn't know what she's talking about. "Be careful, though, okay?"

"It's sweet that you care so much about me." She smiles and pulls me in to finish what we started. I'm a bit rougher with her than usual that night, and though she doesn't love it, she doesn't complain either, just takes it like a sweet little martyred saint. In the morning, she tells me:

"I'm not mad at you anymore for disappearing the way you did. You've been going through a lot, and I get that. But I really do want to know, why did you do it?"

Because I didn't have a clue anymore who I was, and still don't. Because death didn't really seem like something to fight against. Because she left the room without a single word of insult or innuendo, without even one dirty glance, and didn't come back to visit at all after the obligatory first time.

"I don't know," I tell her. "I really don't know. I'm sorry."


	6. Kathryn: Three Phone Calls

Kathryn:

When a sexy girl acts like none of the guys around her have the slightest chance of getting into her pants, it increases her market value. The first guy to break her virgin shield becomes her conquerer, and other males look at him with awe. When a sexy boy fucks every girl in sight but refuses to settle down with any of them, the effect is much the same. I would've much rather fucked every guy in sight and become a kingmaker for it than have had to play Ms. Innocent all the time, but I wasn't given that option, was I? You'll pay for that, Sebastian. You have _no fucking idea_ how much you'll pay for that.

The blonde happens to be popular right now. But it's because of who she's with, not who she is. Too plain, too disgustingly hyper-Christian to be actually interesting to anyone but a career seducer, now that she's got Sebastian, all the girls want to know what her secret is. That's about as far as it goes. She hasn't spent years learning everyone else's secrets, building up an air-tight network of blackmail that would make her respected and feared on her own merits. In fact, the hick's probably naïve enough to think everyone likes her because she's so friendly and nice.

Our Dorothy will find out soon enough the difference between Kansas and the real world. I've already told Marcel I have a headache tonight, a statement he quite charmingly took at face value, French girls not being in the habit of using headaches as an excuse for no sex. I have three phone calls to make—two with caller ID blocked.

(You'll never know, but it's because you're alive that I have the energy to make these calls. I feel myself practically humming with it, happier than I've been in months.)

For the first call, I've created a girl, a sickeningly familiar character type. In my mind I call her Jane. Plain Jane, Insane Jane, a lonely emo girl who got pumped and dumped by Sebastian this summer and is now hell-bent on revenge. Oh, and she's one of Blaine's customers and has seen a few things. She calls up Greg McConnell and screams at him. Her grip on sanity was never too strong to begin with, and now every word out of her mouth comes out as either a sob or a scream. Her voice is about an octave lower than mine.

"How could he _do_ this? Dump me for that bible bitch—"

"Whoa, slow down sweetheart. Why call me about all this?"

Sniffles. "You know Annette, right?"

"Yeah, I know her. She's from my home town."

"So _tell_ her about him! Tell her what an asshole he is! I've seen them, you know, since he dumped me for her, I've seen him checking out other girl's butts when he thinks she's not looking, I've seen him flirting with them." Sobs: "Just like he used to flirt with me." Screams: "He's such a piece of shit, even she doesn't deserve him!"

On the other line, I can literally hear Greg scratching his head. Thinking about how to protect Annette from this psycho, protect Annette from her player boyfriend, protect his own ass from being outed if he says anything bad to her about Sebastian. Thinking is not his strong suit.

"I want you to give me Trevor's number too! He's her _boyfriend_ according to _Seventeen_, I bet he doesn't even know what a total hypocrite slut she is! You'd better do it, too, or I'll tell everybody all about you and Blaine."

He lets out a resigned sigh, like being blackmailed is routine for him, which it probably is. He bought Jane's story wholesale, as I knew he would when I created her, in accordance with my cardinal rule of never ever letting the actions I take get traced back to me. I'm not the best voice actress in the world by any means, but he never noticed a similarity, and not just because he's dumb as a box of rocks. The vocal inflections sounded new to him because no one's ever witnessed Kathryn Merteuil acting hysterical.

For Trevor, I sound professional as can be. I'm a reporter from _Seventeen_, working on an anonymous tip that the "Why I Plan To Wait" girl apparently couldn't wait that long. I'm considering doing a follow-up article, hence the call. He's polite, doesn't say enough to clue _Seventeen_ in on whether he was actually a believer in this chastity bullshit or, more likely, a gay boy using her as cover, but it doesn't matter. The girl's just lost a lot of bible-thumping friends back home.

The last call is the hardest. Having to make it the next evening because of the time-zone difference doesn't help. I do a bump just beforehand, but it doesn't prevent me from picturing the phone's ring echoing through the house, praying Seb is at school like he should be at this hour. Oh good, Mei-Le's answered the phone. I can get this part of the plan started early. I tell her what brand of camera to buy, and exactly where in my stepbrother's room she should place it. Is Mother home? Yes? Better and better. I don't care how many guests she has over for lunch, just tell her it's her daughter on the line, and tell her in front of everybody. Then she'll be _delighted_ to speak to me.

We talk.

I didn't seriously think Mother would refuse to fly me home for Christmas break, but I had to make sure. I reassure her, through my words and tone, that my return will be an asset to her if anything, a comeback story to be proud of. I say I can't wait to see the whole family again—no specific names mentioned. I know I've got her when her voice rises loud enough for the guests to hear. We get off the phone on the best of terms.

I know Mei-Le will do what I've asked of her quietly and efficiently, without me having to ask twice, just as she always does. I've befriended the woman, visited her several times in Queens where she lives with her family, six in a one-bedroom apartment. Had dinner with them, gave them presents. Seduced her teenage son, a freshman in high school and, by the way, an excellent lay. This is what they don't understand, those who oppose me. I am victorious and always will be because I do the legwork, go the extra mile, every time.

She knows that if I choose to, I can have not just her but her whole family deported.

I call up Marcel and tell him I'm feeling much, much better. He senses the shift in me and rushes to my door. He never enjoys fucking me more than when I'm in a mood like this one.

* * *

><p>AN: hummelchen: yeah I know, I'm a tease...


	7. Sebastian: That Familiar Sound

Sebastian:

_Click, click._ I hear her footsteps coming up the stairs. That sharp sound that is nothing like the footsteps of Tiffany, Mei-Le, the cook, Annette or any of the other girls I've brought here. I am in my room with the door locked against the world, despite being alone in the house, finishing up my homework early—another attempt at reform—and thinking about buying another journal. Not one like before, another record of my conquests, but just to put down my feelings and thoughts. The things I still can't tell Annette.

The philosopher Chuang-Tzu envisioned a scenario where he dreamt that he was a butterfly and then woke up. And he asked himself: which was real? And that's what I think about when I hear that familiar sound, because she comes into the house like it's still hers, still ours, and in that moment I can easily deceive myself into thinking that nothing ever changed. That this summer never happened: Annette, "war", my sojourn in Thailand, her humiliating reversal of fortune, all fading away, insubstantial and unremembered as last night's dream.

I know that she'll go first to her room and sit down at her vanity table, do her makeup over again, scrutinizing her face and hair for the tiny imperfections most would never even notice. I've caught her by surprise enough times to know for sure she's just as beautiful disheveled, but try telling her that. If she's not feeling satisfied she may do a bump of coke. Just one; she's careful to never do more than just one.

_Toilette_ done with, she'll come out of her room and enter mine, or go into the living room and slink up next to me on the sofa. She'll make a playful grab for my journal, or prod me for details of my latest conquest. I know part of it is just pumping me for information she can use later in her social scheming, but the avid look on her face sometimes made me wonder if she got off more on my stories than she did with her actual boyfriends. We'll talk for a while, not always about sex. She'd often ask about the books I was reading, pour herself a shot of cherry brandy and settle in for a discussion of Tolstoy (she hated him), Nietzsche (she loved him but hated most of his followers), Chuang-Tzu (who she simply loved).

...And nothing ever changes. Because as soon as I hear her come up the stairs I'm hard, instantly, painfully so. And as usual, I silently curse her for having this effect on me.

I know that she'll be out of her room soon, it's been ten minutes, and her afternoon _toilette_ rarely takes more than fifteen. Will she enter mine? Probably not, this time. Or if she does it'll be in order to deceive me, false kindness before the blow. I could tell her the funeral debacle was all Annette's doing, but she wouldn't believe me. I wouldn't believe it, in her shoes.

Last weekend I took Annette for a drive upstate in my Jaguar, we parked at the entrance to a nature spot and talked for a few minutes in my car. She said she hoped I'd forgive her for spreading my journal around the school, for using it to ruin the life of her worst enemy. "I know you care a lot about her," she said. I told her she was talking to the wrong person, that she'd confused me with someone far more noble.

As if on cue, the phone rings: a short, strangled sound. Kathryn comes in, says "Phone's for you" and leaves just as quickly. Her expression is blank and serene. She's wearing her black pantsuit and a new perfume, bought at the duty-free shop I suppose. It's Chanel, to judge by the basic elements; not Tiffany's No.5, a new Chanel.

It's Annette on the phone, wanting to plan our upcoming Christmas dinner. I tell her to shush, and wait until I hear a click on the line. When it comes, it's just one click not two, a good sign, but still I don't stop holding my breath until I hear Kathryn's door swing open and sounds of her futzing around in the kitchen. Mixing some fancy cocktail, probably—she attempts to be conservative with cocaine but will happily drink herself into a stupor whenever she gets the chance. Annette's excited and nervous about my spending the holiday with her family, reassures me over and over that it won't be a "Meet the Parents" scenario, that her father "tries to be all intimidating at school because he's Headmaster, but at home he's nothing but a giant teddy bear." Again I think, has she forgotten who she's talking to? I've seduced and ruined countless Daddy's Little Angels, enough to know that the overprotective father act is just that, an act. On the Upper East Side, it's the mothers you have to watch out for. But the fact that I'm even invited there for the weekend is a sign that Annette's mother has accepted the inevitable. I'm just glad that I'll be spending Christmas with a real family for once, looking forward to doing the corny kiss-under-the-mistletoe thing with Annette and playing video games with her adorable kid brother. Annette really has no idea how lucky she is. I open the door just a crack, to better hear as the living nightmare turns on the stereo and puts on some Edith Piaf, which is about as close she ever gets to being sentimental. When I first met her, she was French and wouldn't let anyone ever forget it. She doesn't do that so much now.

Annette's heading down to Kansas to reconnect with old friends for part of the holiday break, then coming back up to New York to spend the actual holiday with me. She tells me she'll call me every day on the phone while she's in Kansas. "Be good," she says teasingly, flirtily, but there's real fear behind it. "I promise," I tell her, a bit annoyed—we've already had this conversation.

When I get off the phone and enter the living room, she's there, sitting straight-backed on the sofa, her feet dunked in some kind of herbal foot soak, palms and chin facing up in a faux-meditative pose, eyes closed as if in a very seductive trance. I turn down the Edith Piaf. She shows no sign of noticing. I'm about to leave again when I hear her speak softly, her eyes still closed. "Admit it," she says.

She wants me to ask, Admit what? I won't do it. Sorry Kathryn, I'm too mature now for your little games.

And then I realize not saying anything is another immature game. She obviously wants to bait me, might as well get this over with. She's opened her eyes now and is staring right through me, feet out of the tub, meditative pose dropped. "Admit it Sebastian. You're bored with her."

"No, actually I'm deeply happy with her. If you can't recognize real love when you see it, that's your problem, not mine."

"Really now. You didn't sound so happy on the phone."

"So you were listening in. What's the matter, poor baby doesn't have a sex life of her own anymore?"

"I heard less than one sentence. You were shouting at her about some 'promise' you made, I suppose to not cheat on her insecure ass. Four months in and already she's nagging you to death. Can't say I didn't predict this."

"You also can't say it's anything that even remotely concerns you." I lean in close to her face, looming over her, I want there to be no mistake. "I don't care what you do to me. But I'm warning you: Leave. Annette. Alone."

Her face rises up slightly towards mine as I pull away, a small involuntary movement.

Then she runs her fingers through her hair and sighs. "I'm not your enemy," she says. "I know you think I hate you, but really, I don't. I didn't realize it at the time, but you did me a favor. Getting kicked out of Manchester was the best thing that could have happened to me. The place I'm at now is preparing me for the _bac_, you understand? If I score high on that exam I'll be able to attend any university in Europe. I'm already relishing the prospect of putting an entire ocean between myself and Mother."

It sounds plausible. But then again, her lies always are.

I notice she didn't mention the new boyfriend.

I'm standing by the Louis XIV chair, gripping it so hard the paint starts to flake off, trying to read her face. "So you're saying we're not at war."

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Truce?" I hold out my hand.

And I know it's a lie, but I want to hear her say it.

Or maybe I just want to touch her again.

"Truce." She shakes it. It doesn't change anything—I know my Kathryn will want revenge. I know this as surely as I know the timbre of her voice, the texture of her skin, the amount of cocaine she consumes in a typical day. She says she has some phone calls to make and abruptly turns and disappears into her room, leaving me here with the herbal foot soak and half-finished drink, the music on the stereo, her presence.

In the evening, just as I'm about to go out, she comes into the living room.

"Now that we're _friends_ again, perhaps you could do me a favor and give me a ride?" Her mocking smile, which was once mine. "As in, a ride in your car. I'm meeting Maurice tonight for a bite or two at Cipriani before we hit the clubs."

"So you're staying out all night after a flight through six time zones?"

"I can afford to be jet-lagged tomorrow morning. Didn't you know? Mother is taking me down to Aunt Helen's tomorrow for a little brunch get-together with friends. They're all dying to hear my _recovery story_."

"Wow. And you call me pussy-whipped."

She steps up to me and slaps me without warning.

I maintain my composure, merely telling her, "I'm afraid I can't take you anyway. I'm only going down as far as 34th Street."

Already leaving, fur coat swishing as she unlocks the door, she says "I thought that after years of living in the same house with me you'd have some conception of my life. _Clearly_ I was wrong. I'm taking a taxi." And slams the door in my face before I have the chance to walk with her to the curb.

At Macy's, fingering desultorily through necklaces and scarves, trying and failing to find something that will look good on Annette, it hits me: she didn't have to come back. She could have spared herself the round of social bullshit, the charade of a family Christmas dinner. The only reason she has to subject herself to all that crap is me. It's not a sentimental realization, merely a true understanding of the depth of her hatred for me. At the register there's a pile of rather generic-looking blank notebooks on sale; I pick one up without thinking. When I get home I scribble down:

_In mourning for what was lost_


	8. Kathryn: Addictive

Kathryn:

Limelight.

There's always something to be said for dancing and scoring drugs and having sex in the bathrooms in a place that used to be a church.

Faithless's "Addictive" on the speakers. Nobody here I recognize. I'm E-ed up, coked up, electric with the music and the club's general aura of sex. A dark-haired boy stares at me from across the dance floor, I tell him "yes" with my eyes. He doesn't look a thing like you, but he's smooth like you, seductive like you, speaks in my ear of the dirty things he's going to do to me. I pull him into a cab, tell the driver to circle around a few times via the West Side Highway and F.D.R. at top speed.

"Are you crazy?"

"I'm paying for this ride, so you can just shut up and enjoy it. I like fucking in taxis."

The driver makes no comment, he's used to it. We start driving. It's cold out but I open the window anyway, needing to feel the fresh air on my face. My boy doesn't object, he's too busy playing with my tits by now to notice anything else. His hands on me are the hands of someone experienced with women.

I close my eyes.

Time warps around me, faces and places undergo alchemical transformation, the Ecstasy does its work. City lights zoom by behind my eyelids, I can still hear the words of the song from the club in my head. And the boy beside me is no stranger. We're not in NYC anymore, we're not on this planet anymore, _only we two left on the planet _we're two orphans hurtling through space. I tell him he belongs to me. I know about the other women you're fucking, I tell him, and I don't care, because you belong to me... And I need this, oh fuck I do need this. _I have a demon for a wife_ just for tonight...coming off his tongue furious with hit after hit of pure uncut happiness, he wants to exchange names I tell him be quiet I don't want to hear a word out of his mouth unless it's a lie

Daylight. I'm showered dressed up hair and nails perfect. In this dead house (Aunt Helen's, but it could be anywhere) I socialize with the guests while sipping tea and nibbling on canapes. There's a real art to eating canapes: too few and you're unsociable, too many and you're a greedy fat pig. I do it perfectly. Just like I did before, but now my habitual poise is seen as something new, as a sign of my recovery. I'm dressed more conservatively than usual, in a preppy navy blue sweater and knee length skirt that actually covers the knees, and this too is seen as a sign. I talk about how horribly enslaved I was to cocaine. It's not even half of what Seb's journal made public, but it's enough to satisfy their middle-aged voyeur ears. That was the deal, you see: pretend that the scandal was all about drugs. I feed myself occasional sustenance hits in the bathroom, not enough to give me any kind of pleasure, just enough to stave off withdrawal symptoms.

In the night you feel free. And then you come back to this.

Didn't sleep at all last night after coming home from what's-his-name's place, looked over the video footage instead. Nothing and again nothing. Fast-forwarded through most of it, which felt in a way like a desecration, but I have a life. Boring phone conversations with Annette. Boring sex with same. Come on little girl, at least act like you like it. I can see why you stayed a virgin for so long.

I don't trust myself around this footage. But I watch, gather the information, then go to Mother's little party and do what I have to do. Iron self-control is what allows me to do this. Could you do what I do, Sebastian, even for one second? You ask me why I'm cruel.

If you stay with her you'll start to drink. You'll choose alcohol at first rather than cocaine because you've seen what cocaine's done to me, and because alcohol suits your personality better, rain over sunshine, depressants over stimulants. It won't save you, not when you're shot through with delirium tremens or yellow with hepatitis, or more immediately, when Annette and her friends and parents start to notice your symptoms of being drunk, and you have to lie to them about the symptoms, then drink more to be able to stand the constant lying.

I know this, Sebastian.

Coming back to the house, I pass him coming out. He passes me by without looking at me, not like he didn't notice me, like he's afraid to look at me. Bastard, you should be afraid.

Annette's visiting Kansas for about a week, and he's going to the airport, to see her off. I know this from the video footage. I wish I did not know this.

* * *

><p>AN: Endless regret that I never went to Limelight/Avalon while they existed...now they've turned the place into a damn mall :-(


	9. Annette: Rumors

Annette:

"Maryyyyyyy!"

"ANNETTE!"

Mary, my best friend from grade school on, runs up to me practically as soon I get off the plane and gives me a big hug. I shake hands with her parents, and together we all pile into the car. I didn't miss Kansas—New York's broadened my horizons and I don't regret moving there for a second—but oh, Lord, is it good to see Mary again. So much to talk about. We used to sleep over at each other's houses and stay up for hours talking about what our respective Prince Charmings would look like. The men it would be worth it to stay pure for.

When we get to her house and my bags are all unloaded into the guest room, Mary immediately drags me into her room and shuts the door. "I have a lot of news to tell you!"

"Me too. I'm sorry I haven't called much..."

"Oh, don't even worry about it. We all figured you were busy leading the glam life in New York. In an exclusive private prep school, no less. Do they really make you wear those dopey school uniforms?"

"They sure do."

"Well anyway I'm really glad you're here right now, because now that you're here we can stop all those awful rumors about you floating around."

"What rumors?"

"It's that backstabbing bitch Danielle's fault, I just know it. Ever since you left she's been trying to steal Trevor away. You should see the way she hangs on to him like a leech at lunch period."

"_What rumors?"_

"Well, Danielle says that Trevor told her some reporter from _Seventeen_ called him and said you'd turned into a total slut since moving to New York. That you'd broken your virginity pledge and were dating this notorious player. And I was like, please, you're making that up! That's not Annette!"

I could lie at this point. I could tell her I'm the same Annette she's always known, and she'll believe me, because she loves me, because she is my best friend. But I wasn't raised that way, to lie like that. I take a deep breath.

"Remember how I told you a lot was going on for me in New York? Well, I met this boy. And when I first met him he did have a reputation from the life he led in the past, but I also got to know him really well and discovered that underneath it all, he's this really sweet, compassionate person. And I fell in love with him for that, and he fell in love with me. And yes, we had sex. And no, that doesn't make me a slut."

Mary draws herself up to her full height, which is 5'1", but she's got that steely look in her eyes the pastor of our church gets when he's denouncing hypocrites from the pulpit, and I'm afraid. "You made a promise," she says. "You promised to God. You promised to your parents. And you promised to your future husband. And you broke that promise, and now instead of being repentant, you try to justify it by saying you're in love? You're not in love. You're a hardened sinner."

I thought all this time I was reforming Sebastian. Now I see that I'm the one who's stained. A sinner. I can't even say that Sebastian led me into sin, not really. I used him to give license to my own selfish desires. "Mary—" Please don't let me lose her please don't let me

"What?"

"You've got to believe that I'm not—whatever she's been saying about me. I mean, we fell in love, and I thought—I still really do think he's the one I'm going to marry, and Mary please don't tell me I'm a slut."

"_I_ don't have to tell you anything. That's for God to judge. But if you want my advice, you shouldn't be justifying yourself right now. You should be praying on your knees for forgiveness."

And I actually do get on my knees, but in my heart I know I'm only doing it to be forgiven by her. God feels far away to me, an abstract idea in my mind, a moral principle you _should_ follow, yes, but surely it doesn't compare to the pinky swears and the lanyard bracelets we made for each other and wore until they snapped, and all those sleepovers? And yet at the same time I know there's more to this story. Mary is the youth leader in our town for True Love Waits, the position I shared with her up until I left, and my sexual impurity does not make her look good.

While I'm on my knees with my head down, she leaves the room. I stay in that position for maybe a few minutes, and then my knees get tired and I think, what's the point? and flop myself down onto her bed. When she comes in again it's with her parents.

"Mary told us about what happened," her mother says, "but we'd like to have a chance to hear your side of the story."

Oh God, I can't do this. I'm too tired. "It's as she said."

Her mother nods. Her father says, "We'll drive you to the airport. If you can't get a flight home right away, we'll pay for a hotel. But I don't think you can stay at our house at this time." The look on his face says he thinks he's trying to be kind. That makes it worse, somehow.

After her parents leave, Mary stays standing in the the doorway a moment longer.

"I'll pray for you," she says. I know exactly what those four words mean, because I've used them myself. It's what Christians say to you when they really hate your guts.

* * *

><p>AN: What's the matter with Kansas? lol

Vanessa Davis: wouldn't it be great if they did do a Cruel Intentions 4? Or should I say, a _real_ Cruel Intentions 2? The problem is the original actors are probably too old to reprise teen roles, and I can't think of any other actors young enough who could also fill their shoes...I could see Kristin Stewart doing a decent Annette, but the only other actor I can think of for Sebastian would be Ryan Gosling, who's too old, and I can't think of a single person at all who could convincingly do Kathryn. Your thoughts?


	10. Sebastian: I Love Annette

Sebastian:

After saying goodbye to Annette at the airport, as I'm making my way back to the exit where my car is parked, I notice a girl watching me. She goes up to me and says, "Excuse me, but you look lost. Any way I can help you?" And that's when I fervently start counting down the hours until Christmas break is over and done with, because my first thought is not _What would Annette think?_ or _Now that's a gorgeous piece of ass_, but _Did Kathryn send her?_

It's only my paranoia, of course. The thought of this girl being somehow related to Kathryn's revenge plans is ludicrous. The real danger is at home.

Seduction was never her favorite tactic, never the first option in her playbook, but she'll use it against me because it's all she can do now. And it's going to be her and no one else, because really, would it ever be enough to just send in some standard-issue sexy debutante? I was getting beyond bored with them and we both knew it. The pussy I normally can't have, that is the eternal attraction, or so she'll think. She wants me to do the thing that Annette can never forgive me for, and thus take away from me my angel, the one good thing I've ever had. Because she is alone, because she is cold inside and hollow, because she is incapable of real emotion, her only joy comes from punishing normal people for the sincere love and happiness she cannot feel. I understand this thought process, because until only recently I was the same way. But now things are different—I love Annette. This is what I remind myself when I come in and she's there, wearing nothing remotely designed for seduction, just a boring preppy outfit that presumably helped her impress Tiffany's toxic friends at Aunt Helen's, but there are faint bite marks on her neck and in that moment the only thing I can think of is killing him, slowly, while she watches and quite possibly joins in. Because she gets off on that. Because Cecile wasn't the first girl I seduced and destroyed specifically at her urging, merely among the most innocent. And at the time, although we were only step-siblings, I imagined us as twins, moving through the world as one being and destroying the weak and stupid together. It was never true. I was her toy, her pawn. This is what I think of when she comes up from behind me and whispers in my ear, "Did you mean it when you said 'I don't care what you do to me'?"

"Yes. I'm completely indifferent to your little power games. Do you want to know why?"

"Not really." She slides one hand up my shirt, while the other slowly strokes, then pinches my inner thigh. "Do you still like to be teased Sebastian?"

Push her off why don't you just push her off you "It's because I've found something better. I love Annette now. She's..." What the hell is she? I can't remember.

"...Wonderful and kind and caring, I'm sure." And at that I do push her off finally, but now she's facing me and even though she's not touching me anymore, her stare holds me. "But it's the first one that matters, isn't it? Because your first is the only one you want for herself. Every other girl after that is just someone to give flowers to, and do romantic walks on the beach with, and not be alone on Valentine's Day with. You're not in love with that blonde bitch, you're in love with being in love. I think it's pathetic, frankly."

"What's pathetic is the way you keep on throwing yourself at me. Really, could you be any more of a slut?"

"I think you like sluts." She comes up to me again and kisses me. And this close up I can see the traces of powder on her nose, and she's right. This is what excites me.

But it's lies, all of it. Every word she says, every look she gives me, every time she touches me is a lie. It's all carefully calculated to make me do what she wants. And she won't succeed—just because I've found happiness with a nice Christian girl doesn't mean I've suddenly turned into an emasculated nice guy. I am still Sebastian Valmont and can match her plot for plot if need be. But even to use her once, and then quit her as fast as I can—it's still a betrayal, and Annette would be right to leave me for it. This is what I'm thinking as we make our way to my room, lips still locked, stumbling past the door and slamming it shut. And then we go onto the bed and I can't think of anything anymore, I'm lost in the pure ecstasy of being with her. Just being with her.

"Remember when you came back to me and said I was right and we were two of a kind?" she says, while taking off my clothes piece by piece.

"Yes." It comes out as a gasp.

"And you looked so sad when you said it. Is being two of a kind really that bad?"

"No, it's—Kathryn, it's—Kathryn I love you," I blurt out.

She moves down and puts her mouth on my cock. I feel her warm breath on it, whispering something, it sounds like "I love you too baby" but it's muffled and I can't be sure. What she's doing with her tongue is incredible. I close my eyes, just wanting this to last forever—

And then the phone rings. Out of habit, I pick up. It's Annette, sobbing and barely coherent, wanting to come home and see me right away, talking about some friend of hers in Kansas, and how her whole life is ruined because Danielle said that Trevor said that—shit.

"Annette, calm down. Annette, listen to me. Call up _Seventeen_ magazine. I guarantee you there was no reporter."

I turn around and see Kathryn propped up on some pillows, watching me intently. On her face, an expression of indescribable viciousness. Her real smile.

* * *

><p>AN: Can you spot the Hidden Paraphrased Literary Quotation? (hint: lamb's lover, stealing from someone else's maxims) First person to spot it gets a Special Prize!

Vanessa Davis: Well, I haven't seen Alex Pettyfer in anything so I have no idea if he's a good actor or not, but he certainly looks the part :-)

Happy Corporate Suck Day, everyone!


	11. Kathryn: Naive

Kathryn:

Pretty whispers, little light touches, it's all political of course, all a game, even with him. But then he kisses me back and I'm overcome by the sheer _rightness_ of it all, the two of us alike in our need, devouring each other's mouths as we move to the bed, pulling off each other's clothes, doing what we should have done a long time ago, fuck the bet. And then he says he loves me, and I'm thrown by that because I have no idea what it means. After all, it's not like he hasn't already said this to Annette and probably a hundred other girls. And then I happen to glance toward the ceiling light fixture, where my little black eye is not there, and then I notice an alarm clock on the desk that wasn't there before, and I recognize the brand, and all of a sudden I know exactly what it means.

What I did just now was a mistake, a stupid mistake. But I'm not that naïve. I know just how this works. He'll edit out the footage of him saying "I love you," agreeing that we're two of a kind. Keep the footage of me sucking his cock.

I rush out of bed and hurl myself towards the desk, but he sees where my eyes have gone and he's on me in two seconds, tackling me, fighting me for control of the tape. The phone sits there, off the hook, I yell "Tell her who's in the room with you! TELL HER WHO'S IN THE ROOM WITH YOU! Tell her who you were just about to fuck!" but he doesn't look too concerned so that must mean he had enough sense to quickly put the phone on mute. And now it's all come down to this completely undignified physical struggle, the two of us knocking over books, a lamp, a bottle of whiskey which breaks and spills its contents all over the floor, shit I can feel it slipping from my hands he's too strong, no wait no he's _not_ and the next thing I know the alarm clock's on the floor, in several pieces, water and alcohol soaking into the guts of it. "There goes your plan," I say. And then we both rush towards the phone in the same instant, thinking the same thing, but he gets there first and slams it down onto the hook.

"Nothing of the kind," he says, "that was merely insurance. You might be interested to know that Blaine has recorded some very choice details of your last drug deal. I'm sure the headmaster of your new school would be even more interested in learning just how well you've _recovered_."

Blaine? I feel a hysterical laugh coming, quickly suppress it. Obviously Seb isn't as smart as he thinks. "Nooooo..." I choke out, trying my best to sound terrified.

"I knew that as soon as you came here you'd try some shit like this. How does it feel to know you've been beaten at your own game?" _As soon as you came here_. I file a mental note: Mei-Le is still usable.

Seb grabs a new set of clothes from his closet, takes his cell phone and puts it in his pocket, says, "I'm going now. Annette needs me."

"You're kidding, right? You're going back to the blonde after _this_?"

"_This_ was just sex. It was a mistake, nothing more. Now I advise you, if you value your new life at all, to stay the fuck out of mine and Annette's." He leaves. His voice was shaking, and for a moment, I feel sorry for him.

I still think he'll cheat on her, but not now, I realize, and not with me. After. After the wedding, the solemn church ceremony, the romantic honeymoon in Hawaii or Tahiti or wherever. Days will go by and he'll find himself stuck with this moron he told himself he loved but really doesn't even know, and run off to some other woman, a random woman whose main virtue is that she is not Annette. Until said woman starts nagging at him to leave Annette for her, and he realizes he's caught in the same trap with her as he was with the blonde, and he decides to try to "save" his relationship with the blonde and tells himself he's a good person for trying. I've gone through similar bullshit. But at least I was never dumb enough to believe in it.

I call up Blaine. "What's up Princess?" he says, the slightest note of fear in his voice.

"I didn't want to have to do this, but... 100 South 7th Street."

He's silent. He doesn't say "you wouldn't," because he knows I would.

"100 South 7th Street, the warehouse, and if you move it, believe me I will find that one too. And don't think for one second that the Latin Kings will protect you, because you're nothing to them, and that includes Paulie, I don't care what he tells you when your dick is inside him."

"I'll destroy the—"

"Not enough. You are not to come near Sebastian, ever again. Understood?"

"Understood."

I look through my room. No bugs, I guess he didn't have the balls to plant them on my territory. I'm safe now, I think. Everything is stable, everything is as it was. I reflect for a moment on my stepbrother's pure idiocy in thinking he could ever get the best of me.

And then I collapse.


	12. Sebastian: Everything I Want

Sebastian:

Coming up over the last hill, the view to Annette's country house looks exactly like paradise to my exhausted eyes. The Main Street of the nearby town displays an extravaganza of twinkling Christmas lights. The house itself is a small Tudor-style cottage in the middle of Connecticut horse country. I'm staying here, not just for Christmas as originally planned, but for the next week. I'm staying here because Annette needs me here, because Annette needs the love and comfort I can give...

_Because if you come back home again, you won't be able to resist her._

Earlier, I paced randomly through Central Park while talking to Annette on my cell phone, feeding her one lie after another. I was doing my homework when you called. The phone got disconnected. Yeah, that phone's been having problems. She believed every word of it, because she wanted to.

She greets me at the door with a big hug and kiss, her father with a firm handshake. Her mother comes in, says hello and apologizes for not being able to touch me because her hands are greasy from dinner preparations. Her father says he heard about what happened in Kansas—I shoot Annette a look, but the smile she gives me in return is open and guileless—and is glad that I could come down early. They're accepting me, I realize, not grudgingly, with reservations, but wholeheartedly, because they want Annette to be happy and this is what will make her happy. We sit together in an overstuffed easy chair by the fireplace, Annette on my lap. It's all very cozy. The picture of domestic bliss. Her little brother comes in and proclaims loudly that we should "Get a room!" but by my standards, we're doing nothing. Annette tells me that her friend called and said she was sorry for kicking her out, that it was (her words) "un-Christlike" behavior. She wants her to pledge something called "Secondary Virginity", which, if I understand Annette's explanation, means that she would be accepted into the pure-virgin fold again despite having had sex, as long as she never does it again and agrees in principle that sex before marriage is still a Very Bad Thing. I ask her if she regrets doing it with me.

"No. Well, sometimes. But not really. I mean, I said I'd wait for love, and we love each other, right? And we're happy together now. I don't regret it."

So there it is. As long as I love her, it's okay. Too weak-minded to enjoy sex for its own sake without regrets, she needs me around to validate she's done the right thing. I thought at first she was strong-minded and independent, back when I was first seducing her and she stuck fast to her unpopular beliefs while taking pleasure in calling me on my bullshit. Now I see that she was merely a conformist to a different set of social mores, and without them, she's adrift. She looks at me adoringly, expecting to see the look of love which I in fact give her. But if she knew me, actually knew who I was, she'd know that I despise weakness in women.

I reach around and cup her breasts in my hands, feeling them large and heavy under her fuzzy sweater, pushing away the other thoughts of silk dresses, silk hair, silk skin always elusive, always slipping away from me. And me following like a dog, and hating her, wanting to throw her down on the floor and tell her: Enough with those stupid jock boyfriends. They'll never deserve you like I do. Know you like I do. Fuck you like I do.

I remember her coming into my room and closing the door behind her, and what she said: _"You're in love with her, you don't love me anymore."_ She looked like she'd aged ten years. I didn't feel guilty, the way I do when I hurt Annette. I just felt like I'd also aged ten years.

Time for dinner now. Roast beef and polite conversation. Annette's parents ask me how I'm doing in school, what I've been up to lately. I am expected, regardless of the truth, to regale them with wholesome anecdotes and soundbites about my fascinating (yet wholesome!) life. This is the deal, then: it's okay for me to take Annette's virginity, to do whatever I want to her in the bedroom, as long as outside of it I am the perfect boyfriend she can show off to her family and friends. I tell them everything they want to hear.

Annette, the nominal love of my life, tells me to pass the potatoes. She's beaming at me. She's eating this shit up, as much as her parents are.

My mind keeps drifting away to perversion, to danger, to her. But I manage a passably decent perfect boyfriend act: attentive, caring, loving. My stomach turns. I remember what she said:

"_I'm the Marcia fucking Brady of the Upper East Side, and sometimes I want to kill myself."_

I have to go.

"I have to go," I say. They think I mean to the bathroom. Instead I grab my coat and suitcase and walk to the car. A few minutes into my drive, Annette calls. She's distraught.

"You're going back to her, aren't you? Don't do it, Sebastian. She's evil. She'll destroy you." Yes she is and yes she will. Like I care. She goes on like this for a bit and then chokes back a sob and says quietly, "It's because she's more beautiful than me, isn't it?"

And that's when I decide I've had enough stupidity for one day and hang up. Because she isn't beautiful. When I first met her, I thought I was seeing a vision of perfection walking towards me. But that was years ago. Now I barely notice the charms others praise her for, and when I look at her, all I see is her inner ugliness. Annette is beautiful. Kathryn is decay and rot and filth and corruption and everything I want.

I take the ramp onto the highway and drive fast as I possibly can away from paradise, away from redemption, towards the townhouse on East 79th Street where the truth is waiting for me.

…

Her bedroom door is open just a crack. I push it open further and step in, and then my mind stops. Because there is:

Kathryn,

hunched over the the table,

dressed in layers of coats and shawls,

tear streaks on her face,

my journal lying open in front of her,

packed suitcase on the bed,

on the stereo: _"Ne Me Quitte Pas"_.

And when she sees I've come in she offers neither phony sarcastic quips nor phony romantic promises, neither phony insults nor phony rational justifications, but just looks at me, looks all the way into me with those brilliant emerald-green eyes. And I realize I've been wanting her to look at me just this way for almost a decade.

I turn off the stereo,

gather her into my arms,

slip off her shawls and coats,

til she's standing there wearing nothing at all,

how beautiful you are like this Kathryn.

And frantically she rips off my clothes,

pulling me to the bed,

grabbing on to me so tight it causes pain,

not because she wants to hurt me,

but because she wants me inside her so much,

a desire left years unfulfilled.

And when I do enter her,

even though it's for the first time,

it feels natural,

familiar,

as if we've been together forever,

as if I've never fucked anyone but her.

Her hands run over me everywhere like fire, pulling me down again and again. When I come it's still not enough for her, she licks it off and then kisses me and strokes my cock and soon we're back at it, her moaning and screaming but still never saying a word, me saying her name over and over, Kathryn Kathryn Kathryn there is nothing else I can say all other words have left my mouth.

We fall down finally, after flying so high. We lie there in a sweaty heap for a long time. Occasionally she strokes my face. Her slight weight on top of me feels like the shelter I never had, and I think I could fall asleep every night of my life like this. Still neither of us says anything for a while, we just lie there and look at each other in perfect understanding. Kathryn speaks first.

"You came home early..." she says.

"I couldn't stand to spend one more second with her." She waits. "It was all so fake...I was supposed to be the reformed player, the perfect boyfriend. But all I could think about was you. And that's when I realized I didn't care anymore. I had to see you again, even though I was sure you hated me. Because you're the only one." I hesitate for a second, and then say it. "You always were."

"I know, baby. I read the journal, remember?" I remember, it seems like a lifetime ago, the rumor mill telling me Kathryn "cried like a baby" when she got her copy of the journal and realized her reputation was ruined. I didn't believe it—I'd never seen her cry anything but crocodile tears since Victor Merteuil died.

"I remember," I say. "Kathryn...I just want us to be together. I'll do anything. I swear it."

"Promises don't mean anything."

"I know. But will you believe it when you see it?"

"Yes."

I let out a sigh of relief, and take her hand. "Kathryn...please say my name."

"Sebastian."

"Kathryn."

"Sebastian. Seb." She smirks. _"Brother."_

"Sick fuck."

"You like it."

"I do."

She pulls me in closer.

"Oh fuck, I _do_."

* * *

><p>AN: _This_ (the above sex scene) is where they should have put the song "Colorblind" in the movie. That song just does not fit Annette. I mean, okay, she's a virgin, she hasn't had a dick inside her, big whoop. She hasn't spent half her life emotionally closed off the way Kathryn has.

"Ne Me Quitte Pas" means "don't leave me" and is one of the saddest songs ever written. The best versions I've found are the Jacques Brel original and Mireille Mathieu's cover. The best English translation I've found is that of Dodiad on lyricstranslate [dot] com. (Stupid site won't let me put the links)


	13. Kathryn: The Social Order

Kathryn:

The social order at our little boarding school has experienced its second major upheaval in one year with the arrival of another new student. He is handsome. He is intelligent and well-read but doesn't shove it in everyone's faces the way Marcel does. He is charming, seductive, and utterly bound to the girl who until recently was considered the perfect little darling angel of the school.

They know that we're lovers.

They know that we're step-siblings.

They know that we're unapologetic players with some pretty vicious deeds in our past, and that we still regularly partake at the type of after-hours parties where drugs and alcohol flow in abundance.

Many of my friends here are shocked, _shocked_. I now have zero chance of becoming head of the student governance council. But the artsy crowd, Thea Drakis's clique, is behind us. The cynical, theatrically pretentious Greek shipping heiress and her cohort of artistic and misfit friends lionize us. They think our relationship is perverted and romantic at the same time. I was the one who made sure we would have this safe harbor—Sebastian never thought of it. In this way I protect him. He, in turn, has promised me that I will never again have to face my mother alone.

I believe him, because he's kept his first promise.


	14. Sebastian: Montreux

Sebastian:

We are in Montreux, walking down ancient little streets. You're practically skipping down this one, on your face an expression of joy so pure it makes my heart stop—I haven't seen you look that way since before either of us got into sex, back before our parents got married, when we were just school friends.

"So here we are. Le Quartier de Valmont. Your ancestral home." You shoot me a deceptively innocent look. _"'Ya un Suisse..."_

"Trust you to turn everything into an insult."

"Well, what do Swiss bankers attract?"

"French whores."

"There, does that make you feel better?"

"It does, actually."

I push you up against the moss-covered stone wall. "Is this your surprise?" you whisper, reaching down to feel the bulge inside my pants.

"No."

"Good, 'cause I wasn't surprised." I shut you up with a long kiss. Then I pull back and take your hand in mine, and we walk down the street together like nothing happened. I lead you to a spot underneath a tree where I can sit with you and run my fingers through your hair.

"Remember how when I first told you I was coming up here, you were asking me how the fuck I managed to get transferred so soon?"

"I seem to recall you saying something about 'turning up the old Valmont charm.' I was hoping that didn't mean you actually had to fuck anybody."

"Well, actually I wasn't very charming at all. I just told your mother straight out that I had the dirt on her."

"What was it?"

"Guess."

"Proof she snorts coke?"

"Better. Footage of her and aunt Helen..."

"Now there's an image I didn't want in my head."

"...in a threesome. With the pool boy."

You laugh so hard you nearly choke on your lemonade. "The _pool_ boy? God, could you be more cliché?"

"I shit you not." I take out the rest of the picnic things, and our talk turns to college plans. _Ecole Normale Sup_, American University of Paris. Here in Montreux, it's the first really good day of spring. We're carefree with each other, the way you can really only ever be with someone who knows all of your darkest secrets. We talk, eat, and finally fall silent. You lean back against me and then look up at me with an expression I never thought I'd see on your face, a smile of pure love and trust. And I kiss your neck once and then do it a couple more times, because you're so damn irresistible I can't help it, and you reach up and dig your nails into the back of my neck in a way that I know without words means fuck me now please, and as we're going back to the hotel room I think to myself: so this is what happiness feels like.

* * *

><p>AN: _"'Ya un Suisse..."_ is the typical beginning to a Swiss joke, which is France's go-to [insert-dumb-ethnicity-here] joke. Another hint for the Hidden Paraphrased Literary Quotation in Chapter 10.: it's from Don Juan, and every bit as true with the genders reversed.


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